On Monday, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration honored two Washington state citizen advocates with the administration’s Public Service Award at the 2017 Lifesavers Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Citizen advocates Mark Butcher of Sammamish and Mi Ae Lipe of Bothell each received the agency’s Public Service Award for high standards of achievements in the field of highway safety and contributions to the quality of life in the country.

Specifically, Lipe and Butcher have volunteered multitudes of hours over the past five years to push the state towards strengthening driver’s license testing and training. They have asked government officials to take a closer look at how other countries with lower traffic death rates train and test drivers, in part because of the high rate of young driver involvement in deadly and serious crashes.

In September 2016, Lipe and Butcher led a group of six Washingtonians on a fact-finding tour of the traffic safety ecosystem in the U.K., which has one of the world’s lowest traffic death rates and a vastly different driver training and testing environment than the U.S.

As the group explored the driver training system, they noted that the training and testing of instructors, examiners and students is more vigorous and detailed than U.S. systems. The U.K. system emphasizes training in situational awareness, decision-making skills, risk management, and behavioral attitudes. Their client-centered driver training approach encourages students to set their own pace for learning. The group also participated in training rides for examiners, instructors and students.

The tour also included a visit to an advanced street driver training organization. In the U.K., drivers choose to take this advanced training to keep honing their skills in the years after they receive their license, regardless of age.

The group learned about the U.K.’s long-term approaches to road safety media campaigns with a visit to the Think! campaign headquarters.

“There is no way to quantify the contributions that Mi Ae and Mark have made to traffic safety in our state,” said Washington Traffic Safety Commission Director Darrin Grondel. “While we know we could never adopt these other countries’ driver testing and training systems wholesale, we do think there are ways we can learn from them and Mark and Mi Ae are facilitating that work. I congratulate them on this well-deserved national recognition. We are honored that they are on our team to help carry out the strategies that will drive us to zero fatalities and serious injuries on our roadways.”

This year, NHTSA presented their top public service award to 13 individuals and organizations from around the country.